


Do Holograms   Weap Electric Tears.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Death, Gen, Grief, Memories, Sadness, Unhappiness, brother, remembering, self worth, short fic, son - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 20:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19980160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: Series 2. Arnold Rimmer reads a letter from his mother stating that  his father  has  died, and the  knowledge of this makes Rimmer  think of what might have been, and what his father would think if he could see what his youngest son had become.





	Do Holograms   Weap Electric Tears.

Dead.

That single word was ringing loudly in Arnold Rimmer’s ears as he clutched the letter from his mother tightly in his hand, shock building up inside his chest until he wanted to scream. Inside his head, that single word was echoing. Dead. Dead. Dead.

And he felt terrible about it.

Rimmer couldn’t say that he felt in any way surprised. He had known that his father was dead. They were probably all dead. Arnold Rimmer had left his family behind millions of years ago. He knew that he was the only member of the Rimmer family still alive, if one could call a soft light hologram a live being, which he certainly didn’t. So yes, he knew that his father was dead and had doubtless been dead for hundreds of years. But somehow, the knowledge still hurt him greatly. Receiving that letter as he had done that morning had brought the notion of death home to him. Receiving that letter made him feel as if his father had died only the day before.

The whole thing was almost too shocking to comprehend. 

Arnold Rimmer had never been what one would call fond of his father, or indeed any of his family. They had done nothing but bully, harass, intimidate and abuse him since he was a child, and yet knowing that his father was in fact dead hit Rimmer in the heart like the blow from Thore’s hammer. Dead. His father was dead. And he didn’t know why his death bothered him so much. 

Rimmer sat on his bunk in the cabin that he shared with Lister, glad that the slob was not currently present in this gloomy room with him. He didn’t want Lister to know what Rimmer was thinking or how he was feeling, not that he would have ever shared any of his personal thoughts with the man anyway. He didn’t want to hear any unsympathetic words aimed at his head, and he wanted Lister’s sympathy even less. Yes. It was better that he wasn’t here. Rimmer needed to be alone. He was in desperate need to be alone. Or at least, as alone as one could be when a computer was watching over one every second of the day. He cared not that Holly could see him at this point. It no longer mattered.

As he sat hunched over on his bunk, Rimmer’s mind was going into overdrive, dragging up the memories from the long distant past that he would rather have been able to forget. They swirled before his mind’s eye in varying degrees of detail. He watched his many attempts at the engineering exams as a young man, his brothers jeering at him as he failed again and again. He watched his father’s disappointment over and over, each expressin of distaste and distain driving the knife of worthlessness deeper into Arnold Rimmer’s heart. He remembered to the reactions of his mother, a woman from whom he had KNOWN ONLY RIDDICULE, PERSICUTION AND HEART BREAK. She had been to him nothing more or less than a bitch queen from hell, but now she had seen fit to inform Rimmer of his father’s death. Like he cared.

But he did care. He cared more than he had expected. He knew that he was the least liked of the four Rimmer boys, but he was still his father’s son. Every child tried their best to love their parents, even Rimmer, though he was sure that his father had never given him a reason to do so. But even so, inspight of the intense levelj of frustration and rage that he had always felt for the old man, Rimmer did care, though he would never have admitted it to anyone else. He could admit it to himself though.

He allowed his head to drop heavily into his hands as Arnold Rimmer flicked through the all-too familiar images inside his head. Many thoughts, each thought more terrible than the last was causing him considerable anxiety. Each memory, though grim, did make him think about what could have been.

What could have been if Arnold Rimmer, youngest brother of three talented would be space adventurers, had been a something instead of a nothing? Rimmer’s father had always said that he had expected so much of him. Rimmer had been unable to live up to his lofty heights and his towering expectations and as a result, he had neglected to send him to the academy. John, Frank and Howard Rimmer had managed to gain his father’s approval but somehow, Rimmer had always fallen flat. Was that why his father had never truly classed him as a son? He expected so.

Rimmer wished that his life had taken a different turn. He wished that he, like his brothers, had managed to become someone. What would his father have said if he was able to see him now, a loley second technition aboard a ship who’s crew had been wiped out? What would he say if he found out that the wiping out of the crew had been due entirely to Arnold Rimmer’s own engineering incompetence? He would have been angry. There was no doubt about that. But Rimmer had the feeling that he may not have been surprised. His father knew what a nothing his youngest son was. He probably would not have expected anything else of him.

“So, here you are, a second technition. After all that your mother and I have done for you.” Rimmer heard those snide comments inside his own head as if his father’s spirit had invaded his very mind. He saw the face of his father as if the man was standing directly in front of him, and he cringed on his bunk as those eyes bored into his soul. He knew that his father couldn’t touch him here. He couldn’t hit him, couldn’t intimidate him and he certainly couldn’t have any influence over his son from beyond the grave. Even so, Rimmer could feel the same old fear and humiliation welling up inside him as his own mind forced him to hear his father’s words and see his face.

“I tried my best, you know,” Rimmer told his father inside his head, wishing that he had told him all of this while his father had still been alive, “I tried my best. I just didn’t get the breaks that John, Frank and Howard did. That’s all. But I did try my best. The accident on the ship wasn’t entirely my fault, you know.”

But he couldn’t even convince himself of that fact. He knew that his father would have been bitterly disappointed in him. He himself was. He sighed heavily and looked around the room once again.

This lonely room on board this lonely ship had certainly not been the type of life that Rimmer cenior had wanted for him, but about this, he could do nothing. His father was dead, as was everyone else in his family. Rimmer couldn’t very well tell them what he thought or what he wished he had said years ago. He was three million years too late for that. Three million years and thousands of lightyears too late. 


End file.
